CROTHERSVILLE — Unrelentless, loving, determined, organized.
Crothersville FFA Adviser Linda Myers could have kept going with positive words about her junior-senior high school members who helped make the 33rd annual Toy and Food Drive a success.
She also thanked Crothersville FFA alumni and the Crothersville-Vernon Township Volunteer Fire Department personnel, many of whom currently are FFA members or were in the past.
Praise also went to parents and community volunteers who showed up early the morning of Dec. 18 to help deliver numerous boxes and bags of toys and food to 96 families in Vernon Township.
“When I started this 33 years ago, I wanted it to evolve into a community project,” she told volunteers at the start of the delivery day.
“Because of your support and because you are here today, it has evolved into a community project. I just appreciate everybody being here today.”
After that message, volunteers headed outside Crothersville Community Schools to gather for a picture in front of a firetruck. Then they went back inside the school to load toys and food on trailers for their biggest delivery stop of the day, Village Apartments.
Once that task was completed, they loaded onto two firetrucks that escorted trucks pulling the trailers and helped carry the boxes and bags into the apartments. Some residents were outside awaiting their arrival, while some chose to wait inside and a few even peeked through their windows to check out what was going on.
The rest of the delivery day was spent loading the trailers up and heading all around Vernon Township to make people’s Christmas brighter.
“These people love their community. Period,” Myers said in summing up the day. “They believe in these kids. They believe in this organization. They help each other. There are people that were here 33 years ago, and they knew then that it was going to be hopefully something, and now, it is. It’s a community.”
Myers said FFA initially took over the drive when another organization didn’t want to do toys.
“So we said, ‘We will do toys as long as we get to do food’ because we’re an agriculture-based organization. Our focus is on feeding. Our job is to feed this world,” she said.
Ever since, all ages in Vernon Township — from young kids to senior citizens — have benefited from the FFA’s efforts.
Small families or elderly people living by themselves receive a handful of boxes of nutritious, easy-to-fix food, while large families receive eight boxes of food along with a ham, milk, eggs and toys.
“We try to focus on kids that are going to be home for the next two weeks (on Christmas break). That’s the kind of things we purchase, healthy and easy to fix,” Myers said.
In 2020, Crothersville FFA set a record with 20.8734 tons of food distributed. During a meeting with officers and the advisory board in February of this year, Myers said they determined that was “an insurmountable amount of food.”
“It was back-breaking. It was hard. It was super difficult on manpower, financially, truck delivery. You name it, it was hard,” she said. “So we regrouped and we voted in February that we were going to do quality over quantity, and we have met that goal.”
FFA sold pork burgers at different times throughout the year to raise money for the Toy and Food Drive, and the only other fundraiser was the craft show in November. The latter didn’t occur in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter also received a couple of grants and some monetary donations to put toward the drive.
President Kaylyn Holman said the $6,000 made from the craft show was a record.
“That says a lot because not only did we work hard, but the community worked hard,” she said. “Our silent auction had a record with that, so that was the community who really just wanted to help us reach our goal. We just used the right communication this year and really wanted to get it out there for people to know about it.”
On Monday and Tuesday preceding the delivery day, FFA members wrapped toys going to families with children. After taking a day off, officers returned Thursday to organize boxes for small families, and they wrapped up Friday putting together boxes for medium and large families. Fruit baskets also were made throughout the week.
On Saturday morning, Holman said it was great to once again see volunteers, including some special guests, unite to deliver the toys and food.
“This is just crazy how the community comes together,” she said. “There are people from other schools, other chapters that are coming to help and learn what we do. I think it’s amazing that we can just impact that many people around us. Our state officers being here, that’s a great opportunity for them to come and see how we run things at our chapter.”
This was Holman’s seventh year of helping with the Toy and Food Drive, so she has it down to a science.
“It just brings me a great sense of joy knowing that we’re helping out so many people in the community,” she said. “It’s really heartwarming whenever you bring toys and food into the house and the kids run to the food instead of the toys. That is a great feeling that you get, and you just feel like you really helped them out.”
She knows the recipients appreciate the continued efforts of the FFA.
“I hope that this makes their Christmas a little brighter, that it can take some stress off of them, that they don’t have to worry about going and getting food for the holidays,” Holman said. “We’re providing that for them, and they can maybe spend that in some other way that they need to.”
While this was the final year for all of the officers to help while they are in school, Holman said she hopes to come back and help like other alumni have.
“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “I’m just excited because we’re ready for the younger people to take over. I think we’ve trained them well, and they are going to do great.”
Just like her senior officers always found a way to get it done, even when facing obstacles along the way, Myers is confident in the abilities of the new soon-to-be-named officers to carry on the Toy and Food Drive.
“I’m proud of my upper leadership teaching the younger ones,” she said. “I’m just proud. It is not a big enough word. It’s really just not big enough.”